Great Western Coffee Shop

Look what we're getting for Christmas (next year sometime) - a new siding!

Last Friday I got this letter from Network Rail - obviously bad news, as it started "Dear Railway Neighbour".  Once again, they are going to be noisy at night, but this time mostly some way down the line. Starting last Sunday night,  they will be renewing the siding at Wokingham station, which is alongside and accessed off the Down Guildford. Originally it was 350 m long, but for years has been blocked at about 150 m, roughly where the third rail stops. The letter says the work will be continuous until the 29th January - somehow I doubt that's literally true!

So on Sunday night a couple of digger RRVs were unloaded (by Quattro, the owners), and an engineering train or two turned up. By Monday they'd obviously ripped up the old track and dug out the ballast, and had started "ground works". For some reason they seem to be preparing a layer of coal to put the ballast on ... I've no idea why.

But why is it now needed? I has been too short for 8-car, let alone the now-standard 10-car, trains for years. I've not even seen a Turbo in it recently, only the odd RHTT. I guess SWR have identified a need for parking the odd train there, and presumably did so some time ago to get the work signed off and booked into the EAS. One limitation on its use is that the siding is not accessible from the Up line (platform 1 ) - there is mention of "track replacement", but it's unlikely that will be more than the siding itself.

Here's a picture from Monday. The safety fencing had been put in in advance - if "safety" is the right word. I can see a tiny little trip hazard - can you? The siding is down beside the advancing train.

The work on the roof the signallers' outhouse is coincidental, and it's not clear what they are up to yet. This box is due to be recontrolled to Feltham ROC soon, though I don't think it was part of the last announcement by Grant Shapps of the Government's largesse - "?9.74 million for signalling and infrastructure enhancements delivered on the Wessex route at Twickenham, Bracknell and Virginia Water as part of the Feltham and Wokingham Signalling Renewal Programme, which will help improve the reliability and flexibility of services starting from Easter 2021". Maybe it's a sun lounge, for underemployed signallers.

We've all noticed how whatever work gets done on the railways costs far more than looks reasonable. So how big a job is relaying a siding? A hundred years ago, when we had already had mechanical cranes and shovels for decades (and were replacing steam ones by petrol or diesel), you'd have said a gang of ten blokes for a couple of weeks would be more than enough. But now it's going to take more than two months, not counting the new year break.

The first point is that the contractor is not a small local one, but AMCO-Giffen of Barnsley - second level, behind the really big boys. The current activity was a bloke on a mini 'dozer (an RRV one), who had two helpers to stand watching and wave their arms. There was another one too, sitting peering at his phone.

There is also a nearby works site, with a pair of office cabins plonked next to what is now the something shed. (It was a men's shed when it opened only two years ago, but not for long.) There were at least three more staff here, doing ... whatever. I'm sure it all makes perfect sense to someone!

More activity than Reading Green Park. The last few times I have been down there, not a sign of the workers. Compared with the large multi-storey building next to the down line it is snails pace (if that isn't insulting to snails).

The building next to the box at Wokingham is the relay room.   Apparently earlier this week the work caused a leak in the roof and various electrical components were doused in water.

It looks a lot of scaffolding if the work is just to relay the roofing felt. Which would be a bit ironic, of course.

Someone better let them know that "time and motion" Stuving is on their case - might make them speed up a bit!

If it's not for EMUs then it maybe it is for DMUs, 769s? Or would they have fitted in with the previous length?

I'm sure it was easily long enough, though I can't find a picture of where the marker was. This year's TPR has its length as 8 cars, which agrees with what I estimated as 150 m (ish).

Another weekend, another mob of track workers out - in the rain, this time. About ten certainly working on the siding on Sunday, but there were at least twice as many from other contractors so probably doing other stuff. As you can see, yesterday we got some sleepers, and by today (last pic) they run the full length. Still about ten people doing the usual vital work: watching the sleepers, moving long bits of wood from place to place, etc. ...

Excuse my eyeballs, but I can't make out sufficient detail, are those sleepers suitable for third rail?

After a very serious incident 2 years ago where a technician received electrical burns in a traction power substation, the flash over was caused by water ingress into the build' a survey of all operational buildings containing operational electrical were surveyed.   A plan is being worked through to repair building roofs in a number of types / age of buildings its been decided to remove to old roofing and renew it with a modern system.

   
it may not be an electrified siding in which case no need for third rail sleepers


Network Rail (NR) was required by DfT and ORR to reduce costs by the use of Framework Contractors, each Route tendered out the Framework.  These contracts were multi discipline the Framework contractor then employing sub Framework contractors / suppliers.
These Framework and subs are in the main from large National companies.

Is it cheaper, more efficient etc ............... who knows!

Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronym

I am very skeptical about cost savings from frameworks contracts as they currently operate.  They certainly reduce the clients management costs, but in many cases the levels of sub-contracts can be significant.  So you have the tier 1 contractor subcontracting to a tier 2 to a tier 3 etc.. Each contractor takes a cut and communication gets lost so I have seen requirements in the original contract watered down or lost by the 3rd tier as the price has been committed by the main contractor and each tier needs to pay for its cut! 

Perhaps it is because the contracts are trying to be too much of a good thing. 

In these systems smaller contractors only get a bite of the cake by working for their larger rivals. This leads to a situation similar to the supermarkets and farmers where the smaller contractors are screwed down on price (and do sometimes therefore do a bad job) to pay for the margins of those in between. 

Well, the concrete castings are - they have the fixing holes for chairs - but there are none with chairs fitted. I'd have thought that these days they'd have to be factory fitted - you can't just clip them down using those holes can you? I can't make out any maker's name, but they do have a number - 5894 - on one end. Oddly, they have all been laid with that number on the same (east) side but the chair fixing holes are a random mixture of that side and the other. I can't imagine how they get manufactured that way.

But if it's not to be electric, it does remove the only obvious use for a siding. Based on pre-Covid plans, of course, SWR should be moving up to 4 tph all day, so if there's a hold-up on the Reading side they can rapidly end up with too many trains in one place. If a driver is missing (out of hours, for example) or the capacity for returning trains towards Waterloo is a limitation, a parking place would be a good idea.

But if it's not SWR's trains, it's hard to see why it needed lengthening - unless the track was now so rough it had been declared unfit for DMU habitation and longer is better. Unless it is foreseen that there will be multiple failures of 769s, even of just one engine, so they have to be pulled out of service ...

All the moulds on the production line will all be orientated in the same direction, if i remember correctly there are 10 sleepers per mould.  Sleepers tend to come pre clipped, for third rail there will be 4 holes on each side to anchor the pot, these holes are onl6 12mm dia and may be plugged to prevent unused ones filling with water and potential freeze cracking the sleeper end

I saw these joists had been fitted by Sunday, and did wonder if they were for a roof or floor. You can't really see how deep they are, and in any case a roof probably has to be strong enough for a couple of dozen teenagers to climb on it and jump up and down.

While it would seem odd for the new recontrolled signals to need a lot of heavy kit, the junction will need several point motors and it takes more than a supply of digits to make them dance. So there may be a need for more space somewhere, unless the whole removal/replacement is done in one operation.

I found that the latest (June 2019 - presumably also the last) Wessex Route Strategic Plan has dates for major disruptive works for all CP6, i.e. out to 2023/24. This lists two 9-day blockades for Wokingham Feltham Re-signalling Commissioning and Wokingham S&C - both for the Winter Half-term (eh?).

Geoffrey Osborne were given a framework contract for "One-team Wessex", a multi-functionak framework for infrastructure projects, running from 2014-1018. But that wasn't as an independent prime contractor; they set up a design and project management office jointly with NR at Waterloo. I never saw anyone labelled as "Osborne", so it may be that the subcontracting process was kept with NR.

What I did see, at the end of 2018, was a huddle of small vans (too small for a PW crew plus tools) by our level crossing, with a bigger Network Rail (NR) one. There was a bunch of figures in shiny new HiVis on the track near the junction, looking at it. The vans were liveried Cleshar, SERC, and Ganymede - all contractors who do work in the track, though not on the same scale.

The only reason I could think of for all three to be there was some kind of on-site bidders' conference; the modern style is that any answer to one has to be copied to all so they might as well all look and ask together. No secrets! But what work was planned? This was after the last bent points got straightened, and during 2019 I saw Cleshar vehicles only a couple of times, and yes for work on that junction.

Osborne were given a new framework contract in December 2018, announced together with Murphy & Sons and BAM Nuttall (for Anglia and South Eastern). These are for CP6, and the announcement was for Southern region, though how Anglia fits into that is a mystery. Presumably the work planned within the routes will stay that way and to start with only top management will change.

Edit: VickiS - Clarifying Acronym

That was how Infrastructure Projects was structured prior to the Putting Passengers First reorg. IP was structured into their own regions in 2012, supposedly it was more efficient! but had no accountability to the Routes who funded the projects

IP is now called Capital Delivery who are now part of the NR Regions and are part of the Region Managing Director structure so better accountability.

Most building maintenance work is carried out by Works Delivery which tend to carryout smaller cost projects such as heavy maintenance where as CD carry out the multi million ? projects.  Works Delivery do such projects as sidings renewals as well 

Here's a full resolution clip from that photo, so you can see what I mean.

I thought on the latest third rail sleepers the holes actually contained threaded inserts?  Will have to look at some more closely...

Paul

Concrete screws are used now, they do not require and insert, a steel bolt that screw that threads direct into concrete driven in with an impact wrench set to the right torque.



If the pots were factory fitted they would not survive the delivery and placement process, also modern plastic pots are in 2 bits, the top half sits inside the lower half, there is are stepped adjustments in the mouldings so shimming is no (mostly) longer required

You have rail! It was delivered quietly, with no possession, early on Sunday morning. I didn't even hear all those fishplate joints being done up! Next step, presumably, is a visit from a tiny tamper - one is due on 13th. So maybe it is a Christmas present after all.

But no progress on the new shed roof.

There has been some progress on the siding, done overnight with no big possessions needed. First we had ballast tipped on top and conductor rail left at the side, then a tamp, and finally the insulators and third rail were fitted. You'll see that it's still isolated - very safely indeed (I can't even see the bit of rail for that gap).

Up at The Signallers' Shed, even more progress - it's finished.

Most activity since mid-December has been between the shed and the siding. I thought this would be preparation for the resignalling (and recontrol of the points), but there's no sign of any new grey or yellow boxes (just some less hidden by the undergrowth). But now it's becoming clearer what they have been building: it's a Yellow Brick Road plastic walking route to the siding. I guess that's what the rules say these days.

Good to see the 3rd rail extend all the way to the end - plenty of room for a 10-car unit.

Work on and around the siding has continued for the last two months. For one week there was a team of twenty working, but mostly it's been about five. And all that work has, as far as its visible outcome, been on the yellow walking route and what it leads to. I've always expected some preparation for resignalling to be included, but if so it's not visible.

Part of the route is laid on a concrete base (as in the previous photos), but further on it spans an existing cable duct and presumably keeps that accessible. It's not all yellow, and not finished yet, but it will have lights. And, at the end, you can see that there will be two mini-platforms. No doubt they will have steps at the end ... and those yellow railings at the back?  Taller lights? And ... a name? Perhaps not.

From the limited evidence in the picture, it looks like a longer platform nearby and a shorter one down at the end. That would give access to the cabs at both ends of a single unit, and the far cab of a second unit coupled to it, but not to the other cab of that unit. There's no sign of a third platform for that, though.

You only really need a platform in the middle as the two cabs at each end of a 2x5 car train can be reached by walking through the train, so I'm not sure why the far platform is being constructed?  Not that there's too many 5-car sets being constructed as part of the Class 701 build anyway, so the majority of trains will be formed of the 10-car sets where a driver wouldn't need to leave the train to change ends.

Network Rail now have a web page about the Feltham and Wokingham resignalling (https://www.networkrail.co.uk/running-the-railway/our-routes/wessex/feltham-and-wokingham-re-signalling-programme/). This gives the following commissioning schedule:

So Wokingham - where the points are mechanical, though the signals aren't - is to be done last. The first date I saw for its completion (implying the closure of the signal box) was 2017, though the whole programme had already been delayed before that was set. Still, that's quite quick compared to some bits of work ...

More, slow, progress, with this siding but still many bits to complete. And you do wonder if this new super-high build standard is really called for.

Those platforms are indeed one long and one short. I presume the requirement is to park a train and leave it to be recrewed later, so the requirement is to walk through and check the whole train (unless it arrived ECS). However, I'm still not sure how that matches what they've built.

The latest new bits are all those lights. Most of the path is done, assuming those black and yellow covers are for underground ducts only and gravel is OK for the rest. And no doubt, this being The Railway, that colour choice means something. Quite a bit has been done to tidy up the earth slope beyond the path, with boarding which I guess is a permanent retaining wall. Surprisingly, the raised cable ducting has been kept at the same height but moved from in front to behind the supports!

And you can just see that the third rail has been fitted with guard boards. That does seem a bit of an odd thing to do if it is for safety of the crews of trains using the siding. But is there another reason? Like not allowing a shorting bar to be used in the siding? Or perhaps because the running lines right next door don't form part of a third-rail railway at all?

Its an ORR requirement for guard boarding to be fitted in stabling sidings.  The platforms are to reduce the slips trips and falls for the train crew to access and egress the train, there will be a walkway and I suspect there will be lighting as well

Today (Wednesday 19th) the siding finally opened to receive guests - a few days after other hospitality venues. I've got some pictures, which will have to wait until tomorrow. They show what crew access to a siding looks like now, under the latest agreement with ASLEF.

The visitor was a pair of 707s, running as 5Z41 from Waterloo and then, after lunch, as 5Y68 to Wimbledon Park Depot Sidings. It ran as if for training, calling like a passenger service (until reversing at Twickenham), which does seem odd for 707s. It came out of the siding at walking pace, which might be standard practice or it might be because it was the first test use.

From now on there is a late afternoon Q path in the WTT, from Staines Up Loop to Reading, for reasons that are hardly clear. But no operational use has yet been timetabled. Both Traksy and OTT showed the siding before his, but neither has a berth in it even now - the departing train just appeared from nowhere in Wokingham P2.

Good to see it open, it's a 15mph siding, so probably just taking it cautiously.

Regarding a proper berth for it, you may well see one when the area is resignalled (2024?) but not before.

Here is what a proper siding, and the walking route to it, looks like these days. The new fence seems to have been a bit of an afterthought, and wasn't finished when AmcoGiffen took their site office away (they are still doing some sort of landscaping to it). And a bit of work was going on today; by the look of it some of those lights needed redoing. Given how many there are, it wouldn't be a big fraction of them.

By the way, I'm not really suggesting that improving safety isn't worthwhile - just that it has a cost, and in this case it contributes only marginally to operational performance.

The fence has more to do with crime reduction than public safety, when trains are berthed in the siding there is a high risk of graffiti.  It will not have been an after though it would have been part of the formal design for the siding, it is also likely that boundary fence reinforcement has or will be carried out elsewhere   

Has anyone seen anything using this siding in anger yet?

The same question occurred to me on Tuesday when I noted to patina of rust on the rails when I passed it on the way to Guildford!

It has been used a couple of times in connection with rolling stock failures.

The only thing I can recall seeing parked there is the odd RHTT.

It is posible the siding is for perturbation, and as turnback use during engineering possessions also as a cripple siding

I did question why this long access platform was built at our siding. Well, now we know! It's a working platform for the local freelance paint contractors to work from*.

You might also ponder why, having picked an out-of-depot siding that is monitored - overlooked by a signal box staffed 24/7 - they put a train there on the only day (or two) of the year when the box is closed.

* and at such very affordable rates, too.

Oh dear.  Still, it’s a testing time for graffiti artists due to price rises.  Maybe it would have been a better idea to stable some 769s there and hand out some free crayons?

I was literally just about to post at least GWR let them practise on 769s, not brand new 701s.

I noticed coming through Wokingham this morning there was a graffitied train in the siding.  Is that the same one?

Yes, it's been there all along. SWR must be really short of space. But after the first bit of painting on each side I've seen no more. So maybe the signal box really is a deterrent.

A Class 701 that SWT don't want, SE Trains have taken some but I think they are finding it cheaper to refurb 465/6's

Graffiti can be art. Perhaps it's subjective as to when it becomes art*, but unwanted spraying over windows, etc, is vandalism.

*The 'What is art?' thread can found over there >>> First post, Cave Hunter, 01/01/-9999

I think you're getting 701s and 707s mixed up, as well as SWT and SWR.  ;)

Mind you, whether SWR really want 701s now is open to debate given the time taken to introduce them and the reduction in the core SWR commuter market since they were ordered.